When Hunks Like Robert
Mitchum Lighted Up The Film Noir Heavens- Faith Domergue’s “Where Danger Lives”
(1950)-A Review
DVD Review
By Sarah Lemoyne
Where Danger Lives,
starring Faith Domergue, Claude Rains, Robert Mitchum, directed by legendary
film noir director John Farrow, 1950
The reader may wonder,
no, may be in shock that young Sarah Lemoyne, me, is reviewing a 1950s film
noir minor classic Where Danger Lives
starring Robert Mitchum one of the half dozen or so best- known male noir leads
rather than the expected “expert” on the genre Sam Lowell or at least a
well-known reviewer like my mentor Seth Garth. Thank site manager Greg Green
for that although after all that is what he gets paid for. Paid for putting out
what he has termed “the fire.” The “fire” in this case the nondescript
“dispute” if it can be said to rise to that level between the now slightly
wizened Sam Lowell (my concession to Sam via Greg after consistent and provable
accusations by me that he, Sam, has become both mentally and physically a shell
of what his old-time legend bought and paid for by the studios and book
publishers had been, had become wizened and senile from his rantings against a
harmless young woman like me trying to learn her craft) and me over my
so-called allegations about who actually wrote his film reviews after his
breakthrough tome on film noir which is still considered by some of the
diminishing clot of older writers on the
subject the definitive volume but which I made the “mistake” of saying was dated
and left me cold, left me out in the cold in trying to understand the genre.
Frankly should have been revised by him, or somebody about twenty years ago
when neo-noir films like L.A.
Confidential and Mullholland Drive
took the genre in another direction. Also should have included at least a tip
of the hat to the idea that most of the guys, private detectives, crooks,
criminals and skirt-chasers were deeply misogynous. But that would have thrown
his precious main theory about “man’s fate” into the trash heap and his book
into the remainder bins.
Although I have proof
positive that mainly stringers, usually female stringers romantically involved
with him if you can believe that , or believe that this mountebank has actually
been married three times and has a bunch of nice kids, or young women looking
to get up the professional male-dominated food chain he has muddied the waters
so much that it is hard to believe that he did not do the deeds as noted. Worse
of all personally were his insinuations, hurtful insinuation to both Seth
Garth, allegedly his old school boy friend, and my partner Clara that Seth and
I were in the throes of some intergenerational romance. Thoughts of a dirty old
man who under other circumstances should have been relieved of his duties,
except he had already been relieved of them through what was supposed to be his
retirement. That “hanging around like Father Death,” Seth’s take on the matter
is what has brought Seth to my defense and assistance much to Clara and my
appreciation (although it was touchy for a while when she thought I was in my
“man” interest stage after having gone to dinner with him alone one night since
I have always been a “B” in the LGBTQ firmament while she is exclusively “L”).
All that is over now
though, all the mutual mudslinging is over courtesy of Greg who did what most
editors do when their writers start to wrangle to the detriment of the work.
Called us in to walk the plank, for me to walk the plank or so I thought given
Sam’s vast seniority. But no Greg the fount of wisdom just told Sam that Sarah
should do a film noir review, a review of one of the examples that Sam used in
that long-ago book everybody went crazy over. Not a major example but a sturdy
one as this Where Danger Lives is. In
return Sam is too do a musical or was to do a musical because when Greg
suggested that he balked. Sam balked and said he would go back into cubbyhole
retirement and leave the field to the younger writers. Thanks Sam but I still
wanted to do this review to show my stuff so I too can climb up that cutthroat
food chain you have withdrawn from with seeming good grace. So here we are.
After perusing Seth’s
copy of Sam’s The Life And Times Of Film
Noir:1940-1960 I noticed at least in the femme fatale section proper that
Sam has made quite a case for some “going along minding his own business man,”
usually a a professional man, being “mantrapped” by some vampish woman with
evil designs on his time and happiness. (By the way, btw in Internet speak,
perusing Sam’s book is all anybody could reasonably be expected to do since at
900 hundred long drawn out pages not even the most devoted besotted,
book-wormish aficionado could wallow through the whole thing except those who
have no other life and time on their hands than to wade through such things.
Even Seth has told me and he has said it was okay to use his remarks here that
he has never read the whole thing, never would have been able to so even as
nighttime before bed reading. Especially as bedtime reading. Seth always said
that Sam was a great reviewer but when he went beyond that put out the lights. Of
course, Seth had the advantage, if it was an advantage, of having been present
at the creation as he says while Sam was lumbering along on the volume and so
knows exactly where Sam’s head was when he wrote the thing.
I will give you an
example of what I mean by the so-call mantrap defense of the guy coming under
the spell of some wayward femme fatale who takes no prisoners. In discussing the
high classic Out of the Past starring
Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas a section that goes on for some one
hundred pages alone longer than the plot outline Sam gives the most useful for
our purposes case for his dog-eared theory. Kirk, a minor gangster working out
of Reno who would have been devoured alive by the sharks in Vegas, hired Jeff,
Mitchum’s role, to seek Kathy, played by Jane, his errant girlfriend who has
run off with a fistful of his dough and what amounted to the “finger.” Jeff, a
professional detective, went to Mexico her last known whereabouts to find her,
bring her back and collect his fee as any professional detective would have
done and be done with it. Simply. Except once Jeff got down south, got to
waiting around some off-beat cantina for her to appear once she did and he got
his looks at her all his resolve vanished. I admit Jane Greer was a looker,
would be a looker today too with that “come hither” look that men have found
attractive in me when I am into listening to them sweet talk me which has not
been for a while now. (They could learn something from Seth by the way who when
he took Clara and me out to dinner, a dinner after the dinner we had alone
which had upset Clara no end and got her yelling habits on, to ruffle things
out she said to clear the air that if he was interested in me romantically that
he would not beat about the bush about it. Said that he would have, as Clara
had, taken dead aim at me. That made me feel good and hopefully satisfied
Clara).
But Jeff was a pro, was
supposed to do his business and forget it. Instead he got hung up on some vagrant
jasmine scent, something in the sultry air, something
about the way she turned her head just so and bought into some evil plot she
had hatched up to get him to od her bidding, to get her to forget to bring her
back to Kirk. And who knows what madness since not only did she grab Kirk’s
dough but winged him with a couple of slugs in her girlish gun-simple way. In
the end he will be betrayed by her, will be left holding the bag for a killing
of another detective, will be forced to duck out and hide his identity in some
two-bit California town and in the end wind up in some un-mourned ditch
bleeding like a sieve. I could say more but the reader gets the picture of a
man who can’t get out of the spider-like clutches of a woman. We, Sam wants us
to believe, should bleed for Jeff just because he couldn’t keep his dick in his
pants on a job. Couldn’t say no. Yeah, right.
I suggest that Sam Spade
in The Maltese Falcon turning over
the faithless Bridget and her stuff of dreams when she tried to have him take
her place in the big step-off and Phil Marlowe in The Big Sleep when he foiled Carmen’s “come hither” advances and
took gangster Eddie Mars down for the count had the better professional
attitude when the deal went down. So much for Sam’s silly idea that the guy is
just victim, just a patsy for whatever any stray good-looking woman has in
store for him. That whole bogus sentiment will come into play when I set up the
plotline and theory behind the film under review.
There is always one
moment of no turning back in each film noir I have seen but except for what
book reviewer Josh Breslin calls “holy goofs,” guys a la Jack Kerouac’s
characterization who could not talk and chew gum at the same time, a moment when
the guy makes the wrong turn. Except that wrong turn is not without volition on
the part of the male and is not some Calvinistic predestination gambit where
free choice either doesn’t matter or can’t be bought for love or money since he
is not one of the elect and a doomed soul. Take the good doctor here Jeff, Mitchum’s
role, funny Jeff was also the name of the wayward private detective in Out of the Past who wound up with a
couple of slugs in him via a gun-simple femme in a graven ditch out in nowhere.
He had a promising career in front of him, good bedside manner, a good if not
outstanding resume and a girlfriend nurse who if not startingly beautiful like sultry
Margo, Faith’s role, at least would be a good life partner and bedmate. He
could have had it all and had no complains.
Enter exotic flower
mysterious Margo via a suicide attempt into the emergency room while Jeff was
on duty. Margo, admittedly the clinging type set off something in him beyond
his desire to make sure she did not attempt another end to her life especially
when she “did the dixie,” a term via Seth via Sam, on him and set him on a
search for her. Right there he should have, could have dropped the whole thing.
No, this good doctor actually made a house call for crying out loud. What
doctor this side of Nick Adams’ father in the Hemingway series of the same name
made house calls once the AMA pulled the brakes on that practice citing too
much wasted time and too few billable hours.
Okay, sometimes a guy, a
gal too I know I did with a couple of partners before Clara, will get
infatuated and then sober up. Will let the thing die on the vine because things
don’t add up. This is where Sam is all wrong in his wrong-headed theory. One
night at some gin mill rendezvous dear sweet Margo tried to brush Jeff off claiming
her father, her rich as Midas but demanding father, needed her to go on a
vacation with him. False flag, red flag for any sane guy. What does the big
broad-shouldered, jut-jawed lug do. Run out to her house to confront her
father, to give him the real deal that he wanted to marry his daughter. Except
that her “father” was really her husband and this was a non-incestuous
relationship because she lied to Jeff, admitted she lied to Jeff right in front
of hubby and her fall guy. Jeff could have walked, sort of did walk, except a
sudden scream from Margo from inside the house sent him back in. Yeah, yeah,
Sam like she forced him back. He wanted to on his hands and knees and with a
smile- for his own desires.
That walk back through
those un-pearly gates led to his demise, led to his willing demise, his big
step off when after fighting hubby, a much older man, who fell down after
beating Jeff about his witless head. It turned out that he had killed the old
man-and was at the same time subject to the trauma of a concussion in his medical
self-examination world. Groggy, he accepted responsibility for the killing
despite the old man still breathing while he was injured. He wanted to report
the accident after all that was what it to the cops but against all good sense,
against his still substantial ability to make decisions despite his head injury
Margo talked him out of it. From there it is nothing but a run south to the
border and freedom for the pair. Naturally to juice up the plot they run into
plenty of hassles before they get to that precious Mexican border and the good
life, the free life. All the while Margo was acting very weird, acting like she
has something to hide. Which she did. I hope I offend nobody in the
mentally-challenged community but she was a very disturbed woman who moreover
had actually killed her hubby with a pillow which Jeff was clueless about.
Clueless about until he stopped being of use to her as his head injury
condition made him less useful for the final fateful getaway.
It was not until dear
Margo gave him her patented old pillow treatment that he finally wised up,
finally knew she had a screw loose. Confronting her with his so-called newfound
wisdom right at the border and freedom fence she did the Kathy on him, fed him
a couple of slugs for his efforts. Another gun-simple woman. Not so strange the
coppers who have been hounding the pair from out in the desert somewhere to the
border threw some slugs into her. She did do something Kathy never would have
done, a gesture for love as Rick of Rick’s Café Americain would have said,
twisted love maybe, and gave a deathbed confession absolving Jeff. Jeff,
undeservedly lived to doctor on, lived to go back to that ordinary sweetie
nurse and to avoid another walk on the wild side.
Sam Lowell may not like
it but his she-devil noise about the women, the femme fatales is all smoke and
mirrors, all is now pricked like some kid’s balloon. Even Seth, as devoted if
not as well known a film noir aficionado as Sam, paid me the compliment of
saying that I had put a searchlight on something that had bothered him for a
long time about Sam’s silly theory. That helpless male victim part by grown men
of the world. He still is not totally convinced of my take on the matter but he
respects it and if I give some more proofs he, unlike Sam, is willing to jump
ship. Welcome aboard, mate.